Annie Lee Cooper

Annie Lee Cooper (2 June 1909-24 November 2010) was an African-American Civil Rights movement activist from Selma, Alabama.

Biography
Annie Lee Cooper was born in Selma, Alabama on 2 June 1909, and she dropped out of school in seventh grade to move in with an older sister in Kentucky. In 1962, she returned to Selma to care for her elderly mother, and she was registered to vote in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but the local white officials in Alabama prevented her from registering to vote due to their racist views. In 1963, she was fired from her job as a rest home nurse after her voter registration was declined; she had correctly recited the preamble of the US Constitution and told the clerk that Alabama had 67 state judges, but she was unable to name each one of them when asked. Cooper decided to take part in the Selma to Montgomery marches and the voting rights campaign in Selma in 1965, and she punched Sheriff Jim Clark in the face for prodding her in the neck with a billy club, leading to her being jailed for 11 hours. After the incident, she became a registered voter, and she died at the age of 101 in Selma on 24 November 2010.